MAN OF STEEL

I hate to admit this, but I am weak and pathetic when I am sick.  I like to give Brian minute-by-minute updates of my symptoms which I always find fascinating.  Only Morgan shares this tendency with me.  People are kind but I wonder if they roll their eyes when I'm not watching.  Yikes!  I'm not going to be one of those old ladies, am I?

In contrast, my husband is tough as nails.  He is in so much discomfort most of the time but DOES NOT COMPLAIN.  He has never been a whiner.  Usually I don't even realize he's sick until after he's well again and he tells me about it.  He faced death twice in the hospital and another big scare after we were home but it only deepens his character and broadens his spirituality.  He was up all night a few nights ago, sick as a dog…even called to me for help but I couldn't hear him because he had shut my bedroom door!  (Yes, I had a guilt fest!)  When I woke up at 4:45 to check on him the next morning he was colorless…so sick.  The reasons are complicated and he's better now but he was so humble and brave.  Two days ago his chest tube site started draining; I mean serious, non-stop dripping.  He soaked through FIVE rolled-up bath towels in a matter of hours until it finally stopped.  Not a word of complaint.

And the coughing!  It isn't getting better and it hurts him so much!  Natalie and I watch helplessly as he squeezes his cough bear (Micah) to his chest and hacks painfully.  His face contorts with an expression of near-agony I've never seen before, not in nearly 30 years of marriage.  Then he puts on a big smile and looks at us and says, "DAMN that hurt!"

He hasn't been grumpy and is never demanding.  Always tries to be appreciative of the smallest effort to help.  If trials bring out the true character of a man, I've got myself a gem.

Every day I admire him more and more.  Please, babe, hurry, hurry, hurry and get well so I can be my old crabby self again and make everything about me.  

SPATIAL AWARENESS DEFICIT

If I ever had it, it is long gone.  "Spatial awareness"..the intuitive sensing of solid and immovable objects in one's path.  As a grammatically challenged friend of mine might say, "She don't got it"  (she being me).

Last week .....twice in the same evening (don't judge me), I gave myself two (self-diagnosed) concussions.  The first one occurred when I opened the microwave door smack into my forehead (I saw stars) and the second when I  closed the trunk of my car right on aforementioned forehead creating another goose egg that is still tender as I write this.

Who does that?

Worse is that my very own flesh and blood daughter who I love more than life and is one of the sweetest people you'll ever meet,  thinks there is nothing funnier than watching someone (usually me) get hurt.  She will howl with laughter and be rolling on the floor with uncontrollable chortles, holding her stomach and trying not to let me see the pure enjoyment on her face as I bleed to death from ...oh. say... tripping over my own shoes and falling face first into a pile of rocks.

She says it's the look of confusion and awkwardness on people's faces (usually me) as they try to regain balance and preserve a little dignity that she finds so funny.

Her explanations do not exonerate.  I have practiced my expressions of cold rebuke in the mirror but they do not phase her.

As I get ready for bed at night and examine bruised shoulders ( walking into walls), scraped shins (I still don't know how far to stand back when I open my car door), and sore hip  bones (kitchen counter bumps), I wonder when or if I'll ever get grace back.  But why worry about it if it entertains others so?

One small sacrifice, albeit a painful one, to bring a smile to dear Natalie's face.

The little rat!

DAY 8

8 days post my husband's sternum being sawed wide open, the only heart he has being poked, prodded and"surgeried", the blocked, diseased vessels being bypassed by three healthy ones ...and we are finally home from the hospital and on the road to recovery.

People say I'm stronger than I know but I didn't feel strong this week.  I felt angry, vulnerable, fearful, irritable, faithless and needy.  Also HUNGRY but somehow incapable of feeding myself.

To come home from the hospital when outside it is dark and cold and to find that someone has left me nourishing soup...was the FIRST best thing.

To wake up at 3:00 AM Saturday to the sound of our daughter coming in the house, to see her sweet, calm, and pretty face and know she is the only person in the whole world who loves Brian as much as I do...that was the SECOND best thing.

To see Brian smile and laugh the way he did before they invaded his body, to see him ask for assistance in getting down on the floor so he could be closer to our cat, Bailey, and to see him enjoy food again was the THIRD best thing. And now I am too tired to say anymore.